(i) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a surface protective film, a transfer member, an image forming apparatus, and a method for forming an image.
(ii) Related Art
A surface protective film has been conventionally disposed to suppress formation of scratches on a surface in various fields. Such a surface protective film is used for, for example, a screen and body of portable devices such as cellular phones and portable gaming devices, a body and door knob of automobiles, the exterior of a piano, a protective film for protecting an intermediate transfer body or the like in image forming apparatuses.
An image forming apparatus including an intermediate transfer body will now be described. A process for visualizing image information using an electrostatic latent image, such as an electrophotographic process, is now being utilized in various fields. In the electrophotographic process, image information is visualized through a charging and exposing step (latent image forming step) of forming a latent image (electrostatic latent image) on an image carrier, a developing step of developing the electrostatic latent image with a developer for developing electrostatic latent images (hereinafter may be simply referred to as “developer”), the developer containing a toner for developing electrostatic latent images (hereinafter may be simply referred to as “toner”), a transferring step, and a fixing step.
Various transferring processes for transferring a toner image, such as corotron discharge and contact transfer, have been employed. In the contact transfer, a method that uses a conductive roller or belt composed of a polyurethane including conductive particles such as carbon particles dispersed therein has been developed.